DeBruce for the sake of resort access

Dear Editor:I just returned home to Longmont after a pleasant four-day stay in Snowmass with my closest 25 family members. The trip from Snowmass to Frisco took the usual 2 1/2 hours. From Frisco to Idaho Springs took another 2 1/2 hours, plus some. Somewhat later, at Highway 119, I turned off and went through Black Hawk, Boulder Canyon and Boulder to get home. The whole trip was a dismal experience, until I got off I-70. If I’d had to stay on I-70, like to go to the airport, too bad! That looked to be another three hours or more.Any of you who aren’t actively campaigning for the referenda in the fall, the ones for the state to retain “overcollected” money according to TABOR, are out of your minds. The resorts cannot succeed by plane alone. There has to be some major access improvement, and fast.Gov. Romer was very successful in convincing people to let the state keep the rebate money. He said, and rightly so, that we needed more and better – roads, schools, you name it – and people believed him. He said that the ratcheting-down effect was going to kill the state.Later, state government said, “We have a better way, a free lunch.” The better way was to spend most of our available money on bond interest to pay to expand I-25. Surprise! Now there’s no money for anything else! Even with the new federal transportation budget, Colorado needs a way to support its transit needs. We are about as bad as you can get on highways, and all the wonderful valley buses can’t fix that. Highway 82 is a lot better than when I left seven years ago, but I-70 is a lot worse.All of our towns have deBruced. Let’s get some better highways and some better schools. Colorado is almost dead last in money spent for schools per pupil. That’s not the will of the people, according to the vote for school funding a couple of years ago. Let’s deBruce the state for a while and see if we can’t catch up with population growth.Please don’t let the traffic choke our resorts. And as they say, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Go, guys!Linda JohnsonLongmont